I Forgive You

Marlene Dietrich said, “Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.”  I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately, and how people are great at apologizing, but terrible at forgiving one another.  When someone hurts me I get angry, as I am sure most people do, then I get sad, and then I wallow in some self-pity.  Everyone loves a good wallow.  I think to deny our feelings of anger, sadness, and self-pity are to deny the fact that we are human.  No one who apologizes should expect the other person to skip these steps unless they are not really interested in true forgiveness.

Now comes the hard part, not for the person who has made the apology, they are done with you and on their own journey of forgiving themselves, but the part where you have to actually forgive the person.  People say “I forgive you,” like it is something as easy as three little words placed together instead of an emotional mountain you must climb and conquer.  When you forgive you must realize that the transgression is not actually about YOU.  People do terrible things to one another and the root is always fear: anger, aggression, violence, hatred… they are all rooted in fear.  You must have compassion for the transgressor, realize that they were filled with fear in some way, before you can forgive them.  Who among us has not experienced fear?  Once you remove yourself from the transgression and replace your anger with compassion, forgiveness is on its way.  Sometimes it takes time and prayer to reach compassion.  Once I had to pray just for the willingness to forgive someone for a month before I was ready to have compassion for them.

After you arrive at compassion it is important to place boundaries.  You should always protect yourself against further hurt.  Patterns must be broken, truth spoken, and lines drawn.  There need to be consequences for the crossing of those lines.  Some people mistakenly go from compassion to forgiveness and forget this step.  They are doomed to repeat the past. 

So you have compassion for the transgressor, placed boundaries that protect you from further transgressions, now you must let it go.  God has a plan for each of us, and He loves you and the transgressor equally.  Do not let the idea that sin has raised you above another allow you to punish the other person for their actions.  Your hurt has been real, but so has theirs.  The best way for both parties to move on is to allow God into the equation.  If He can forgive the sinner, than certainly you can too.  You may remind the other person when they cross boundaries, you may enforce consequences, but the original sin is done and it is not your job to punish.

True forgiveness is not constantly reminding someone how hurt you are.  After a certain point the self-pity is selfish and unhealthy.  Turn your thoughts to God and what he can do to heal you.  Have faith that all of our trails are part of His plan to make us better and more complete people.

I don’t say any of this lightly.  We are so obsessed with instant gratification in this world we even want instant forgiveness, and it is a process that can’t be completed quickly.  I see resentment all around me as a consequence.  I see people wrapped in their blankets of resentment like it is a shield that will protect them from further hurt, but in reality, it creates a barrier between us and God.  It eats away at us like a cancer.  It seeps out of our pores and infects our interactions with other people. 

True forgiveness feels like a weight lifted off of your soul.  You are suddenly freer, lighter, and more whole than you were before.  Those people who have been truly hurt by the people they love know the difference between the light feeling, which is God’s Grace working within us, and the slow eating pain of resentment.

So the next time someone hurts you and apologizes, take some time before you forgive them and do it properly… it will change your life.